UK Government Report Scathing About Corbyn’s Labour Party
Brian of London
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The bottom line from the UK Government’s big report into antisemitism (Jew hatred)?
‘Zionist’ must not be used as term of abuse. That’s going to cramp the style of our favourite antisemites online.
Jonathan Sacerdoti gives the background writing on i24 News’s website.
LONDON: The influential, cross-party Home Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament has published a report which details failings in the way antisemitism is investigated and dealt with within the UK. The report says that all political parties and media giants must address “pernicious” antisemitic hate.
The importance of this report should not be underestimated. For a long time, many Jews in the UK have expressed deep concern about antisemitism. But previous responses from the authorities have often fallen short of their expectations. This is especially the case when antisemitism is seen to be thinly disguised as criticism of Israeli government policy, when it seems to go unpunished and unfiltered online and when the police and courts do not seem to act decisively. It has also been of concern when antisemitism has taken root in anti-Israel discourse (especially on university campuses) and when it has occurred regularly in British political parties.
The report focuses on several major areas and addresses them robustly as the result of a thorough process of hearings as well as acceptance of written evidence from many different organisations and individuals.
Jonathan’s full report is worth going over, here’s what he has to say about UK Labour Party:
Despite the presence of Labour MPs on the committee, the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership comes in for strong criticism. Corbyn himself is harshly judged, with the committee saying it is “not persuaded that he fully appreciates the distinct nature of post-Second World War antisemitism.” They point to “the Party’s demonstrable incompetence at dealing with members accused of antisemitism” and reference “the saga involving the suspension, re-admittance and re-suspension of Jackie Walker.” Walker is a Labour activist who had previously accused Jews of being the “chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade” and also questioned why Holocaust Memorial Day was not more wide-ranging to include other genocides.
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone was also interviewed by the committee, after he suggested live on BBC Radio that Hitler had supported Zionism “before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.” He later repeated this claim several times in subsequent interviews, causing the committee to conclude that “the ongoing membership of Ken Livingstone, following his outbursts about Hitler and Zionism, should also have been dealt with more effectively.”
As a result of these and other incidents, the report says that some now consider the Labour party to be an “unwelcoming place for Jewish members and activists.”
This is also directly relevant considering the stalwart work Dave does uncovering Jew haters pretending to be “anti-Zionists”
The report says that “Twitter trolls attempt to use vile attacks to silence the voices that they find unacceptable,” and declares it “disgraceful that any individual should have to tolerate such appalling levels of antisemitic abuse in order to use Twitter.”
The committee calls on Twitter to “devote more resources and employ more staff to enable it to identify hateful and abusive users in a proactive manner,” demanding that “it must introduce more rigorous tools for detecting and filtering abuse.”
Either read the rest of Jonathan’s summary or, if you have the time, dive in and read the original report direct from the UK Government’s website.
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Brian of London
